WineBot - Wine Tasting Robot

NEC and Mie University have worked together to create a robot that not only passes you a bottle of wine but also can establish if it's a good one or not but can name the brand and recommend some cheese!

“There are all kinds of robots out there doing many different things,” said Hideo Shimazu, director of the NEC System Technology Research Laboratory and a joint-leader of the robot project. “But we decided to focus on wine because that seemed like a real challenge.”
Although it speaks in a child-like voice could be off-putting but it can be programmed to recommend types of wine the owner prefers because it can analyse the chemical compostion of any wine it "tastes".

If you like your wine and have a few hundred quid to spare then you may like to buy one. Or if you're like me and occassionaly goes out and have one, a few quid on "house red" will suffice.

A Robot in Every Hone by 2020

The EveR-1 domestic robot which is able to hold a conversation, make eye-contact and appear to express emotions such as joy, anger, sorrow and happiness has been created in South Korea.

The creator of the EveR-1 domestic robot "demonstrates [that] our robotic technologies are at the forefront of the world," according to the robot's creator Baeg Moon-hong who is a senior researcher in the Division for Applied Robot Technology for the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology in Ansan.

I've got the AI film to watch tonight and have got a copy of "I-Robot" so I get a bit scared when they say that they intend to make robots full members of society!

With industrial robots around every corner of the industrialised world, service robots have yet to take off, but Oh Sang Rok of the South Korean Ministry of Information and Communication said "The market size of industrial robots is almost saturated worldwide … but the market of service robots is only now opening ... Social and economic needs for intelligent service robots to support people's daily lives are increasing with the advance of an aging society."

But these new robots are a step-closer to exhibiting homosapien-like qualities. "For now, EveR-1 can be employed as a guide robot at museums and department stores or as an educational model to read books to children," said the creator Baeg.